Charles Larsen

There comes a certain point in the year where cold weather just becomes an inevitable fact. I recall a few years ago being incredibly unhappy about the fact that there was a mild dusting of snow on our sidewalk just a week before Halloween. Any thought that my favorite holiday might be trumped by cold weather meant that I would have to layer up in order to thoroughly enjoy plundering porches of lazy adults of their unattended bowls of candy.

This year, however, that didn’t quite happen. Instead of ranting about the cold weather and unfavorable roads being here earlier than expected, when the first snow of the season came I would just say to myself “it had to come eventually.” However, that particular mindset doesn’t exactly make winter any less favorable in my mind. The cold weather still causes me to experience the five stages of grief annually.

An embarrassing thing for me to admit is that I have never been acclimated to cold weather despite living in Wyoming my entire life, which may — cause me to have a minor grudge against any individual who tells me they prefer winter to any of the other three seasons. Even as I get older, I find more and more seemingly valid reasons to denounce winter at every opportunity and as time goes on more of the reasons converge into one broad answer: Winter makes me depressed.

That one single explanation of why I or other people don’t enjoy the colder months may seem without merit, and it could be chalked up to relatively Grinchy behavior, but there are some solid reasons behind this diagnosis. One of the most profound aspects of winter in a place like Wyoming is the lack of life outdoors, trees lose their leaves making them look like a skeletal structure reaching towards the skies, the vibrant colors of summer and autumn cease and slowly merge into desaturated tones of gray, white and brown, the symbolism of these things make winter into a hollow shell of any other time in the year.

Staying cooped up inside is also a major part of the colder seasons. Being unable to leave home in order to do something like go to the store or take the dog for a walk means spending extra time and effort in choosing an appropriate outfit so you aren’t chilled. Even then, going outside in even the most layers possible is still less preferable than staying indoors and wearing just a T-shirt and sweatpants in a comfortable 70 degree home.

Overcast weather and a lack of sunshine is usually a depressive combination when it comes to any point in the year. Paired with other aspects of the winter it doesn’t help make it any better. During the day it makes the outdoors look bleak and uninteresting, and at night the sky is illuminated with the orange glow of streetlights within the city, so the night sky feels unusually bright outside my window when I’m trying to sleep.

All of these aspects combined usually contributes to many levels of unenjoyment when the colder days are around, and it never usually helps if one or more people in the family have a cold. The key thing that gets me through it all, however, is the fact that the cold weather doesn’t last forever and before anyone knows the wiser, the weather will allow for short sleeves again.